I Hate That I Love You
by Amicus Cordis
Summary: Lance is supposed to like princesses and mermaids and supermodels. Nothing against Pidge, he just can't comprehend why he likes her. / Pidge has known that affection is frivolous in who it chooses to target. Doesn't make it any more bearable.


Based on a Tumblr post: " Don't give me one-sided unrequited love, give me two-sided unwanted love. Both sides are deeply in love with the other and both sides are like 'fuck, really? them? really?' "

* * *

It is approximately three hours until the Coalition Assembly and Lance is having a crisis.

The crisis is of the most innocuous origins. He is in the kitchen of the Castle of Lions 2.0, languidly reclined on the counter with a milkshake in hand as his two best friends fanboy over matters that go completely over his head. Pidge says something that makes her and Hunk laugh. A pun, probably, off of an Altean word that sounds suspiciously like "time dilation." Honestly, he has no idea.

He laughs anyway, and that's when he realizes he is utterly screwed.

"Lance? You okay?"

His brain is hung up somewhere between _"I want to watch her laugh forever"_ and _"Just how much would she kill me if I kissed her?"_

"Lance!"

Hunk and Pidge are calling for him together now. Lance shakes his head quickly—shit, he had been staring at her. "Sorry. Spacing out. Think I need a nap."

He feels their eyes as he waves away their concerned questions and deposits his milkshake glass in the dishwasher (there's a fancy Altean name for it, but, it's still just a dishwasher). Hunk calls for him to holler in the event of a disaster, the kitchen door closes behind him, and as he walks to the bunks, Lance finally lets himself wonder when the fuck he fell for Pidge.

She has never even consciously existed in the realm of possibility for him. Not because she is unattractive. She is, objectively, amazing. She is one of few people he can do shit like firing a Robeast coffin into space with without judgment hanging over his head. Hell, she encourages and often even starts the hijinks. Her confidence is addictive, her bravery is contagious, and her brilliance. _Her brilliance._

He stops dead in the paladin lounge to scoff. "She's not out of my league. That's—She's not."

Maybe she is. But so are most girls and that has never stopped him from trying. No, that's not why he's never considered her before. Pidge is just not his type. Pretty, yes. He thought she was cold when he first met her, but now, everything about her is warm. The brown eyes, the fluffy hair, the freckles, the loose shirts. So yeah, she's pretty, but she's not Lance's kind of pretty. Lance likes girls with long legs (or fish tails) and curves and melodic voices.

There is an exception to every rule, but Lance has already had his. He still remembers being seven and telling Marco that he was going to marry his first crush, Marin, the girl with the muddy jorts and faded tee shirt. _"Come on, Lance, you have better taste than that. What about Nancy?"_ Nancy with the cultivated curls and flavored lipstick that Lance tasted in his first kiss a few weeks later (and Marco clapped him on the back and offered him a fist bump).

With a groan, he flops backwards on the couch and throws an arm over his eyes. Above all, he and Pidge are bros, and you don't develop a crush on your bros. Especially when that bro is Pidge, someone who has gotten annoyed by Lance's crushes before, someone who would demolish him if she knew he was starting to think of her in a something-other-than-friends way, someone who has never shown romantic inclination and is probably allergic to feelings.

* * *

Pidge is no stranger to feelings.

While not experiencing it would be simpler, she has perfect understanding of the chemicals that manifest to create attraction. She also understands how utterly impractical it can be. In fourth grade, she had a crush on a girl that didn't fade even after the girl stole the peanut butter cookies from Pidge's lunchbox and left a roach in their place. Love has no fucking standards.

So when her heart stuttered the first time Lance sat across from her in the Garrison commissary and offered his cookies in exchange for any form of communication that did not entirely consist of her making unpleasant faces at him, she pushed the feelings to the back of her mind as an ephemeral annoyance. Give it a month and the feelings would disappear.

It has been twenty-seven months.

As someone who apologized to the person who put a roach in her lunch, Pidge really should not try to rationalize her feelings, but she can't help it. What does Lance have that, say, Hunk doesn't?

Similar shitty sense of humor to hers? Lance and Hunk.

Will listen to her no matter how she rambles, especially when she gets excited? Lance and Hunk.

Physically attractive enough to have made members of multiple alien races swoon? Lance and Hunk.

Have her back in battles both literal and emotional? Lance and Hunk.

Give her that sense of warmth and home that is only the best parts of Earth? Lance and Hunk.

Can speak to her intellectual interests on her level? Just Hunk. By all logical methods of finding a suitable partner, Hunk should be the target of her feelings. She _tries_ to have feelings for him, she does, as they finish their milkshakes and talk theoretical physics, but she can't make herself have feelings any more than she can make herself stop having feelings.

It does not matter how irrational it seems. Everything in the universe has a cause. There has to be some piece of the equation she is missing to explain why _Lance_ of all people.

"Okay, dude, now you're starting to freak me out too." Even when Hunk speaks, it takes his awkward twitching for her to realize she has been staring intently through him and not responding to a word he has been saying. "Are you okay?"

Pidge lets out a long breath and drops her finished milkshake glass next to Lance's. "I think I need to wind down before this coalition thing."

"Should I be worried?"

"Nah, I'm just contemplating the demise of the human heart."

"Yeah, okay, I'm worried."

She salutes over her shoulder as she leaves the kitchen. She wants to lose herself in Killbot Phantasm for the next two hours, but for some reason they set that up in Lance's new room again. Probably because her pesky infatuation still wants the excuse to crash with him. At least going to Earth let her get a plethora of new games for her laptop. Not Killbot Phantasm, but she can still watch her frustrations dissolve into pixels under her arsenal of unrealistic weaponry.

Except that in the lounge on the way to the bedrooms is none other than her own personal curse, sprawled on the couch with one arm dangling by the floor and the other draped over his eyes, because of _course_ he'd just go and find a community area to take over for his nap. It's not actually something she has any reason to be mad about, but she is already irritated and that's an easy scapegoat. Your room is right down the hall, Lance!

(Yes, she is being petty, but she's in her own head so she can think whatever the fuck she wants.)

He doesn't stir when the door opens and shuts, nor when she stands over him and pokes at the corner of his mouth, nor when she slumps down on the couch next to his feet.

She is running out of reasons to hate him. Okay, she never hated him, but she had a nice list of reasons to not give her feelings for him any acknowledgement, including but not limited to, his womanizing tendencies, his habit of shutting her up whenever she began to talk in terms he did not understand, and the fact that he is a fucking peacock. But he gave up womanizing to focus on Allura and even since getting over her has not shown interest in anyone else, and he now not only listens to what Pidge says but sometimes even asks questions. He's still a peacock, but dammit, he's a really pretty peacock. And an available one, that traitorous part of her mind says.

Preposterous. This is still _Lance._

"You just gonna keep watching me sleep?"

She jumps. His lips curl up in a smile, and under the edge of his arm she can just see his eyes focused on her. She tilts her head back so he hopefully cannot see her cheeks getting warm. "I was contemplating getting a marker and marring your pretty face."

"Aw, you think I'm pretty, Pidge?"

"Pretty vain."

He pushes himself upright, facing her. "Truly, you're too kind." Then he kisses her cheek, and as her face gets hotter, she realizes the missing piece of the equation. It is not a trait of Lance, it is Lance himself. No matter how much she thinks she has him figured out, he still catches her off guard with shit like this, and despite him being a much needed constant in her life, no calculations will ever let her be able to predict him. Goddamn paradox.

He is far too close. There is no way she can hide her red face now. So she pretends nothing is happening, just like she has every time he has gotten too in her space for the past two years. It's worked so far. "Careful, Lance, or people will think you've developed feelings."

"And that would be _tragic._ " Here's more of that unreadable shit. He is clearly being sarcastic, but what is his sarcasm communicating? That he would not care if people thought he developed feelings, or… that he would not mind if he did? "Not time to go to that meeting thing, is it?"

"We still have about two hours before we have to armor up."

"Good." With that, he turns around and falls back, slouching at an angle she can't imagine being comfortable for his height so that his head is against her shoulder. "Shove me away now, or get comfy, because I'm not waking up again until we have to go."

She shifts so that her arm is no longer pinned against the couch, instead placed around his back and draped over his side. "You weren't even asleep in the first place."

To that, he takes exaggerated breaths and murmurs a snore. She rolls her eyes and smiles.

His façade lasts for all of three ticks before he snuggles closer. "You kill me, Pidge."

She drops her head to rest on his. "Feelings mutual."


End file.
